'Forget' 'em, Cee Lo: Lennon Wasn't Jesus..Nor Wanted To Be

The Bashing Of Cee Lo Green's NYE performance of 'Imagine' in Times Square has familiar ring of piousness from purists who don't know their own 'God'


KC Shoen


John Lennon once complained during his time in self-imposed exile between 1975 and 1980 that no one was performing any cover versions of any of his previous solo work . Since he had stopped being musically active, Lennon was suffering from the effects of what I term as ' Billboard Chart Absenteeism': having had a successful commercial run prior to his second son's birth,  Lennon had awakened to the fact that he was no longer 'present' in the music scene, and found it quite disturbing no bands were wanting to record, nor perform, their own versions of 'Give Peace A Chance', 'Working Class Hero, or one of his biggest 'Imagine'. According to an interview with Yoko Ono, upon hearing this from her husband, responded, "maybe they're afraid to do so, not wanting to disrespect your work."


If this is accurate, the absolute pummeling of Cee Lo Green by so-called 'fans' of JL are themselves the complete draconian alter-worshiping trogs in this ridiculous chastising of Mr. Callaway. Any informed fan worth their salt would know this, also by tracing Lennon's own exploration into different genres just prior to his death in 1980. One of his last works "Walking On Thin Ice" was a dance track he constructed with with his wife, as Lennon wanted to experiment with a new sound he had come into contact with in the New York post-disco music scene via Yoko Ono, a sound which would later come in to the popular mainstream identified as 'New Wave.' 


This was they very cassette of the song JL was clutching in his dead hands when that delusional psychotic purist-freak Mark David Chapman, drunk on JD Salinger and religion, decided to empty his revolver into Lennon outside the Dakota.


Chapman was a self-identified 'disillusioned fan' of Lennon. So much, he decided it was up to him to annihilate the 'phony' he felt JL had become. Lennon wasn't 'pure' enough to be allowed his freedom to live as a husband, father and human being, and had to punished for his violating his stature upon the alter he had ascended to, adjacent to that of Jesus Christ and Elvis.  


Chapman had, at one time, worshiped at that alter, and carried out his ' moral duty' as a disgruntled 'parishioner' of that 'church', to issue a 'correction.'..




As a disillusioned fan.


As a songwriter and performer, Cee Lo thought it advantageous to perform 'Imagine' with some alteration of the original lyrics to give it a present-day relevance and make it his own: which is what great singers often attempt when they perform any 'standard' that is exceptionally well-known like Lennon's classic. During the course of that performance, at around 11:56 pm, things immediately went from engaged harmoniousness to puritanically stupid when Mr. Callaway diverged from the original lyric "and no religion, too" with the words "and all religions true",in which audible gasps and reactions within the audience could be faintly heard. No sooner than he had completed the set, Cee Lo, anticipating backlash on a tsunami scale , quickly tweeted 


 "Yo I meant no disrespect by changing the lyric guys! I was trying to say a world were u could believe what u wanted that's all"


Poor Bastard. Mr. Callaway had not a inkling that his reflective treatment of this lyric (which I found refreshing) would make him a repository of utter bombast and pugilistic swill fit for a morose, crystal-meth infused New Year's brawl at the local trailer park. The priggish Lennon purists, attempting to come across as having their stately, pseudo-intellectual sensibilities utterly vandalized in having their 'God' desecrated in the name of performance were the most hyper-critical..and the most venomous.


Understandably, he went on the defensive through his Twitter account, but could not keep up with the steady barrage of 'bullets' being 'emptied' into him, and wisely discontinued, even removing the tweeted messages as promptly as he had posted them. 




It isn't just the acidic nature of the backlash that's disturbing: much of it wasn't worth the waste of energy to digest. It was the context of the vitriol I found astounding, even hauntingly familiar in tone and timber to the mindset of one infamous crackpot who turned December 8th 1980 into a day of execution for a guy who was merely returning home from a fantastic recording session, trying to enter his apartment so he could hungrily playback the cassette he had clutched excitedly in his hands. Excited by what he and his wife just 'cooked up' in the studio. He just wanted to get inside, listen, and 'feel it' 

But the last thing he would 'feel' were the hot spikes of painful entry wounds from metal shells delivered to his body by his executioner's handgun. His executioner: A fucking psychotic, emotionally underdeveloped murderous dweeb from Ft. Worth Texas:


A fan of John Lennon


In the immediate aftermath of this, I recognized this borderline psychosis, which leads me to ascertain that avid Lennon fans are no different from the modern day 'Pontious Pilate' who 'crucified' their 'lord' on that doorstep on a dark Monday night one December. For all of the completely rancorous diatribes Cee Lo needlessly received immediately after that performance, I have to assess that these 'fans' are just like Chapman: ready to render judgement on anything that appears to be desecrating their fervent worship of John Jesus Christ Lennon, even stating heinous shit such as wishing Mr. Callaway's death. 'Fans' have demonstrated they are no different from JL's assassin: it is the same mindset, just different weaponry. So, for all of you that took trouble to defend Lennon's 'alter' by assaulting Cee Lo, I got something for you, because I do understand that 'facts' 'acceptance' and 'information' are vocabulary that are beyond your realm of feasible understanding.


Yoko Ono sanctioned the performance
Cee Lo, under the full blessing of Mr. Lennon's widow, (and inheritor of his Estate, by the way) rendered the performance with her approval. It made perfect sense to have Cee Lo give this performance, as he is a muliti-genre performer whom is highly experimental in his sound, and on top of his game currently. It is most likely what JL himself would've sanctioned, given his own experimentation toward the end of his life (Take a listen to this as evidence, that's JL on the guitar and keyboards).


John Lennon had a diverse music appreciation
Being a musician and songwriter, JL's taste in music was pretty broad. In his early years, it was Elvis, Fats Domino, and even George Formby. In his latter years, he had a particular ear for emergent punk,  disco, 'soul', and New Wave just prior to his death. Cee Lo was the perfect representative of this diversity to do "Imagine", as his tastes in music vary from motown, Hip Hop, to Hall & Oates to Journey. Lennon recorded with a fairly broad spectrum of other artist such as Elton John and David Bowie;  Cee Lo has worked with similar diversity in talent, such as OutKast, Santana and Danger Mouse.


and lastly,


You wouldn't be hating Cee Lo if he had done the same thing looking like Michael Buble
Face it, 'Lennon fans': if the dude came on stage looking like that lilly-white Canadian crooner, there wouldn't have been the backlash. Buble would have probably done something similar to the lyrics, for like Cee Lo, he's actually very intelligent with a wry sense of humor, who would've understand the exact nature of the importance of that moment, considering all the divisive conflict in the world..


Instead of getting a 'safe'-looking caucasoid, you got a diminutive, bald-headed, African-american who doesn't 'look like one of 'us'": Cee Lo is NOT 'safe': his sardonic use of language and suggestive lyrical and vocal inflections contained within his music coupled with his will to take creative risks even in the face of ugly criticism is one of the reason he resonates so succinctly with music fans of all stripes. He is doing things in popular music most mainstream acts don't have the intestinal fortitude nor the insight to do: just 'be', and be honest doing it, warts and all.


Just Like Lennon.


Lennon took a risk leaving the Beatles, and marrying a woman who WASN'T a blond-haired blue-eyed photographer from New York. And while P-Mac's wife Linda got mad props and love for working with her hubby as a member of Wings in the 70's, JL got completely pasted when he and his Japanese wife did the same thing with The Plastic Ono Band. Linda McCartney was canonized as a charitable soul up until her death. Yoko Ono to this day is villainized as some kind of greedy, tormented, evil fascist who was accused of single-handily destroying the Beatles, and in kind, with regards to her husbands legacy when he was violently murdered.


Putting it bluntly, its a 'race thing' for you elitist Lennon-worshiping sock puppets. From the baby-boomer realm of that "kingdom" to its youngest 'enlistees' it is all about this alleged 'purity' of his music that should not be 'touched' by the dirty hands of the 'lesser talented.' You are, and have become the very thing that JL railed against in his life, and are a part of the very mentality that killed him.


The irony is immeasurable. You should be embarrassed. 


Cee Lo exhibits creative traits similar to Lennon, this is precisely why Yoko Ono invited him as her guest to sing 'Imagine'. If you knew your history about the Lennon's in relation to those who are avant-garde in their own rite, this selected performance made perfect sense. It's one thing not to like it, fair enough. Quite another to errantly start shooting bullets  of vitriol at the performer himself because it doesn't meet with your elitist and puritanical approval.


I'll end this on this last note: I have met Cee Lo, and know he is extremely appreciative of all the attention he's received. It's not 'lost' on him, As he stated to me during our meeting  in regards to the blazing success of 'F*** You' "It's has taken on a life of its own. I'm just trying to ride this wave wherever it is going to take me. It's unbelievable..and overwhelming."


So..my final response to you purists out there is this:

The Resurrection Of Melba Moore

It's An Overused adjective, But This Is No Ordinary 'Comeback'

Melba Moore in a live performance in Lyon, France May 3rd, 2008


KC Shoen aka 'PNG'
Artist/CEO
www.myspace.com/shoentel


There is no logistical reason for Melba Moore to be anywhere near relevant in the music scene as it is now.

The 1993 divorce from Charles Huggins wasn’t just your average celebrity carnival melt-down scrapper between two megalomaniacal cads who wish nothing further than to dowse each other with ad hominem just to get some media attention for their respective selfish causes, real or imagined: what we normally expect to see in our tabloid-obsessed media culture.

Not even close.

This divorce had so much more toxic potency than that. It had all the makings of being a bonifide coup de grace. Huggins, a ne’er-do-well liar, thief, and borderline sociopath spent sixteen years absolutely raping the Peach Melba of all her earnings by maliciously defrauding her name in by way of numerous account openings, land investments, and opening lines of credit without her knowledge or consent. But he wasn’t done there. Just to seal the deal, he set about going public to whine about what a lying, crazed loon she allegedly was. In the court proceedings themselves, Huggins tried every available legal angling to make Ms.Moore the poster child of morbid delusional paranoia. And to add a bit more arsenic to the open wounds, Huggy-Bear almost achieved complete destruction of her relationship with their only daughter, Charli.


All this under the harsh reality that her marriage (at least on Huggins end) was a complete façade, and a platform for which a coward could use the sanctity, and legality of the marriage and business partnership for his own gravy train ticket to ride. Doubly insulting, was the way the vermin of the New York media ate up the financial toll put upon her, further putting more salt in the gash by way of violating her privacy, humiliating her for their own ends. Any lesser individual might have gone clock-tower sniper, maybe dissolved their will by way of chemical abuse. Even as far as suicide. And Charles might have had his way entirely on all counts, but he had one problem:

Melba Moore.

Rather than lie down and surrender out of the entire intensity of that debacle, she fought back, never losing her calm in public, refusing to let intimidation make her react irrationally, and staying focused on the fact that she had the truth. As the years went on, and as her visibility waned, she never stopped working, even going as far as doing a three-woman play in a regional theater in Florida. She was even evicted from her apartment, as the years of fraud coupled with litigation left her destitute, having to even go as far as to apply for welfare for a short period. Yes, I said it: Melba Moore and food stamps in the same sentence…

There is no logistical reason for Melba Moore to be anywhere near relevant in the music scene, and given all this, even remotely sane enough to hang on…

Enter Ron Richardson.

HushTown Entertainment was originally ran by Huggins from its earliest beginnings in 1976. As Melba began to win lawsuit after lawsuit to wrest control of her career from Huggy-Bear’s clutches, she installed Richardson: the son of Donald Raysor, the replacement for Ronnie Bright in the famous doo-wop group The Valentines, and godson of the legendary (and rather notorious) producer Richard Barrett (for you youngins’ out there, just google “The Valentines”, or go to Wikipedia and do the same). Having come from such great stock, Ron had a predisposition for what he calls “classic acts”, and began his career booking such acts to venues that otherwise they could not obtain themselves, particularly if they had been out of circulation.

As time went on, he went into management, specifically focused on, as he explains “these classic divas (who) suffered in the business and with there so called ‘soul mates’”. Melba couldn’t have asked for more qualified candidate than Ron, not just because of his experience, his passion for the “classic” sound, or the unique music bloodline he came from. It was something deeper..unusual, even by today’s standards.

He actually gave a damn.

Ron Richardson, by nature of his strong Christian values, nuanced by his real-life earthiness in life experience, was a natural fit to lead in the New Era at Hush. As Melba poignantly pointed out on a recent on-air interview I was a part of, she said of Ron “He developed my philosophy—‘if you don’t know-learn’” adding “ ‘if you have a passion (for it) you can learn’” A simple statement that encapsulates the entire complex position that the Peach currently resides: She has learned..

It took up to as recently as 2007 before complete justice was served on Huggins (by way of incarceration), and for Melba to start receiving the full-on royalties she was long overdue. A testament to her faith, she is more than just a survivor. More than just recovered. She has learned, and from the learning an impossibly imagined growth now finds her at the precipice of regaining that top spot..and keeping it.. “Nobody But Jesus” was the featured track on the Virgie Lindsey Show, and although the playback through the radio program was scratchy as sandpaper, I heard something while on the line that stunned me almost to a hault…

She’s gotten better. Vocally. Emotionally. Spritually.
Don’t take my word for it..Listen for yourself.

There is no logistical reason for Melba Moore to be anywhere near relevant in the music scene. She is, however relevant. Her music is evolving. Her marketing strategy is evolving, Her management is nails, and she’s due to release her first commercial CD in years. Melba is relevant. It’s not logical.

But neither is faith.

…As Ron would say “ *ponder*”

www.myspace.com/melbamoore
www.myspace.com/hushtown

This is from the live radio broadcast in which Melba Moore and I talked about the music industry and new artists.
Her advice is gold to anyone trying to make headway into the music world. A solid listen. Thanks To the Peach for taking the time

Share on Facebook